Growing up is hard. It’s also inevitable. Friends who used to spend a lot of time per day, per week, per month at times only see each other a few times per year.

zZq is still a web of friendships, acquaintances, and bonds. Shared experiences are like glue that refuses to release, and in some cases, only gets stronger. I suppose it’s a bit like cement, which ingests Carbon Dioxide as it ages, increasing it’s strength in time.

Looking through old pictures from the early 200s I found some old Trasfires in which some 20 or more people had congregated in the backyard of a parent’s house, around a fire, chatting, making merry, and generally enjoying each other’s company.

It doesn’t happen like that anymore, and the cottonwood pile is nearly gone. Housewarming parties are more common. Wedding receptions too. Also, gatherings of friends in memory of another who has passed.

Our old friend, companion, antagonist, driver, and general ally veruus passed away. He fought against Leukemia, which had gone undiagnosed for a few years. Extensive treatment followed, and a bone marrow transplant was scheduled before he succumbed to the condition.

Ben attended many Black Hat and DEF CON conferences and lived between Utah and Florida.

Most of us can hope to be as memorable as he was, for better and worse.

A decade is a long time, let me tell you. Five years is quite a while.

It’s take about that long places like this, with a dedicated, custom, bespoke CMS, phpBB, and Gallery installation, with a side of QDB and misc other projects like phonese to get all but abandoned for MySpace, then Facebook and Google+ and all manner of other atrocities like Instagram.